8216 Insects. 



Melasis buprestoifles, Diacantbus holoseiiceus (very abnndant on oak-shoots, and 

 especially where oak-fialls are rotten), Malthiniis frontalis, Ochina Hederae, Mordellis- 

 teua abdoniinalis, C'oiiopalpus testaceus (both sexes out of o:ik-houghs), Abdeia 

 qiiadrifasciata (ditlo), Rliynchiles inegacephalus, Apion minimum, A. Spencii, A. ebe- 

 ninum, A. rubens, Balaninus turbalus, Orobitis cyiineus, Ccenopsis Waltoni, Nano- 

 phyes Lythri (swarminp: on Salicaria), Acalles ptinoides, Pachyrinus quadrituberciila- 

 tus, Orchestes avellanaj, 0. ilicis, Coccinella bieioglyphica, Tritoina bipiistulatum, 

 Scymuus capitatus, Aspidophorus orbiculatus. On the Thames bank near Hammer- 

 smith Bridjfe (Surrey side), Ancbonienus scitulus, Trogophloeus arcnatus, Stenus 

 nitidiusculus, Lesleva punctata, Evrirhiuiis Festucie aud Tachyerges Saliceti have been 

 very abundant; and I also took the following: — Bembidium gilvipes, Steuolophus 

 exiguus, Clivina collaris, Gallicerus obscurus, Ilyobates forticornis, Achenium hurnile, 

 Ocalea rivularis, Baridius picicornis. — E. C. Rye ; 284, King's Road, Chelsea, S.W. 



Bradycellus collaris. — Any coleopterous readers of the 'Zoologist' will do well to 

 examine their specimens of ibis insect; all that I have seen are nothing but small B. 

 harpalinus. Dawson notices the great similarity of B. collaris and small examples of 

 B. fulvus, and, as he bas confounded B. harpalinus with the latter species, it is no 

 wonder that lie found this resemblance. It seems doubtful whether we have B. col- 

 laris at all (if indeed il be a distinct species). — Id. 



A curious Habit of Agabus uliginosus. — I was one morning last week searching 

 along a pond-bank, after a heavy shower of rain, for some Chrysomelidae which I found 

 frequenting the flowers of the common buttercup, when my attention was drawn to a 

 dark creature attached to the stems of some high grass which grew near. Thinking it 

 was one of the genus Carabus, I picked it off, when, to my astonishment, it proved to 

 be Agabus uliginosus. Making further search, I soon found several otliers in a simi- 

 lar position. They had all climbed the grass-stems as high as they would bear (some 

 eight inches), in fact till they began to bend with the weight ; and these Agabi ap- 

 peared to be holding on tight by their fore legs, and, with their heads drawn inwards, 

 to be revelling in the hot sun. That such an apparently clumsy beetle as the Agabus 

 should perform such a feat as this is a circumstance I think worth recording ; and it 

 also explains the mystery of this insect being sometimes found in the bottom of the 

 net when sweeping hnig grass and herbage by the side of ditches. The Agabi appear 

 to be fond of sunning themselves, for I have often found A. maculatus on the top of a 

 stone wall, evidently enjoying the blaze of a July sun, and where it could only have 

 got by using its wings; but attached to the uttermost part of a blade of grass is the 

 last place I should ever have thought of for searching for any of this family. — V. R. 

 Perkins, in ' Transactions of the Tyneside Naturalisls' Field Club.' 



Acentropus niveus : its Characters and Affinities. — Having been myself one of 

 those who ventured a rash guess that this insect was lepidopterous, and this guess 

 having possibly influenced the opinion of some subsequent writers on the subject, I 

 beg to retract, withdraw and cancel this or any other guess I may have ventured, and 

 to admit that I never ought, with such very insuflicient knowledge, to have published 

 them. My attention has been again called to the subject by Mr. Cooke's observations 

 (Zool. 8085), which I have read with the most careful attention, but which seem tome 

 to leave the question as far oflF a solution as ever. Various guesses are adduced in 

 support of the lepidopterous hypothesis. Mr. Westwood has discovered scales, but 

 there are no such scales on the wings of any lepidopteron ; scales far more like those 

 of Lepidoptera occur on the elytra of a thousand beetles : moreover, the character of 



